Neurorehabilitation and acquired brain injury: Viva

Branch 1: Framing the rehabilitation and the recovery curve

The candidate should frame the rehabilitation on the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning, separating the body structure and function impairment from the activity limitation and the participation restriction. A strong candidate states that the goals are set at the activity and the participation level with the girl and the family, using the Goal Attainment Scaling, and that the plan is multidisciplinary, goal-directed, and family-centred. ^[2]

If the examiner presses on the recovery curve, the candidate should state that the recovery rests on the neuroplasticity, the capacity of the surviving brain to reorganise, and that the gains are fastest in the first three to six months and continue more slowly through the first year. The candidate should add that the therapy is dosed to the curve, with the greatest intensity in this early high-plasticity window, and that the principle is use-dependent: the connections that are used are strengthened and the unused are pruned, which is why the therapy is repetitive, intense, task-specific, and salient. ^[8]